Scott Brown vs. Susan Bysiewicz et al.

Tripped over this piece from the dean of Boston College’s law school on Scott Brown, Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Massachusetts, and his 2005 bill to exempt nurses and doctors from a requirement to provide emergency contraceptives to women if it violated their beliefs.

Reading James Madison’s “Memorial and Remonstrance” last week, I was struck by how timely it is after 225 years.

Madison wrote it as a protest against a bill to provide tax support for teachers of the Christian religion. “Memorial” condemns the bill for many reasons, but the first one is that it violates the freedom of conscience to compel people to support a practice they disbelieve. It would be wrong, Madison said, to “force a citizen to contribute [even] three pence” to support such an activity.

The logic is inescapable. Now apply this to Connecticut’s Citizens Election Program, which among other things requires taxpayers to support immoral politicians in general and pro-abortion candidates in particular. The courts have struck down parts of the law that created the program, but not the parts about compulsory political contributions to candidate who don’t share one’s personal or religious beliefs. Rather, the courts said the incumbents crafted the law to minimize the amounts to be given to third-party candidates whose moral positions often are more odious than those of major-party candidates.

It would be better if the courts struck down the entire law and let people contribute to the candidate they support, or not contribute if they so choose.

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